Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Once they were finally left alone, Helga and Markus finally had a chance to talk without the fear of being overheard. Even so, with the Valkyrie’s daughter possibly arriving any time soon, Helga wanted their conversation to be as brief as possible. Yet betraying her own rationale, she couldn’t help her curiosity as Markus brought the cup of coffee to his burning lips.

"Can you still taste it?" She asked, her eyes glued at his lips.

"What?" Mumbling in confusion he glanced over to the Valkyrie before following her gaze and figuring out what she meant. "Faintly yes, but like most of my bodily function, this little joy is also being taken away from me."

"I can’t imagine what it must be like living in that prison of a body…" Leaning forward, Helga set her cup aside as it pained her to drink in front of him.

"However," glancing back up, she folded her hands over her knees and glared into his burning eyes. "You’ve always been a knight–"

"Not a knight but a servant, passed from one master to the other," putting his cup down at the handrest, Markus took a deep breath and let the weight on his shoulder fall. "I will serve the current king of Athenia until his mortal time is over, but then I will serve no king. Past that, I simply wish to die."

A grim silence descended on the two. Helga wanted to fault him for seeking his own death, but she couldn’t. How could she? After all, the only reason she was alive was to raise her daughters, and after that? Perhaps she would wish for the same.

"I doubt there’s anyone who can kill us around though–" Halfway through her sentence, Helga saw a grim longing in Markus’s eyes. It was a request, one she couldn’t grant; not without killing herself alongside him. Holding a stern, quivering finger at his face, she barked at him in anger. "Don’t you fucking dare put that on me!

I-I’ve already enough people in my life, and there’s no way in the nine hells you’ll manage to convince me to kill you in battle!"

"No need to get so worked up," Markus responded, seemingly unbothered by Helga’s complaints.

"What the fuck, Markus? Why would you even bring that up…" Following her complaint, silence took over the room once more.

They’d both lost just as much as the other, none of them desired to live forever and knew that they were simply biding time until one day someone kills them. But it couldn’t be an intentional death or a suicide for the blessing of Aphrodite would bring back Helga and the same would be the case for Markus, but instead of the goddess of life, he was bound to the lord of undying, Murdok.

"Forget I mentioned it then," breaking the ice, the dark knight picked up his helmet and put it on. Getting up from the spot, he glanced at Helga one last time. "Milo is still young so we probably won’t have to worry about it until at least half a century. Maybe then we can have this conversation again because I don’t plan to serve this world indefinitely."

"You don’t have to serve!" Helga exclaimed, bouncing out of her seat as well.

Turning around, however, Markus had but a few words more to say before leaving.

"And yet that’s all I–no, we have done. That’s all we’ve done, just different shackles binding our feet." Leaving her house with those words, the knight left a haunting hole deep within Helga’s heart. She didn’t know what to feel, how to persuade Markus from doing what he planned to, but after a few minutes passed, she couldn’t think of anything.

’What got into him all of a sudden? After countless centuries living without complaining, now he wants to die? Are you fucking kidding me?’ Feeling a jumble of emotions bubbling inside of her, Helga made her to her bedroom lie down and rest her burning head. She didn’t wanna think about what she’d just discussed with Markus, especially since it involved killing him herself.

"I’ve seen enough of them die, and you wanna make me a murderer too?" She mumbled to herself standing in front of the mirror. Staring at nothing at all, she was reminded of the countless people that she’d lost throughout the ages. Some to diseases, some to old age, but most of them in battle.

Taking off her clothes, she turned in front of the mirror to get a look at her scarred back. Carved with the names of her friends, her lovers, even those who’d tried to enslave her, they were all there with her as a mix of good and bad. Yet it lacked the name of her husband, the only one whom she carried not on her skin but in her heart.

"I don’t want to carve your name on my body, you idiot. Enough people have treated me like a canvas including myself, but that has to stop, right?" Unsure for the first time in the longest time, Helga sat down on the bed; her body still bare.

She tried to think of ways to get her conversation with Markus out of her head, and eventually, she landed on one, but it wasn’t exactly something she was fond of trying just yet.

’The portrait of that boy and the elf should still be in my bathroom…’ Glancing through the open door to her bathroom, she picked herself up and decided to take a warm bath before indulging into anything that would numb her mind. However, for her that didn’t include not touching the stashed bottles of wine hiding in the top compartment of her kitchen. Find more adventures on NovelBin.Côm

Right as she got one of them in her hand, she could hear her daughters arriving at the door. In a rush, she quickly slipped into the bathroom, both to hide the fact that she was walking around naked as well as the bottle of wine in her hand.

"MOMMM!" The girls cried as they entered, their voices all cheery.

"I’m in the bathroom! You two don’t make a ruckus, and go get changed in your rooms!" Announcing that order, she let her body fall to the floor. Once down on her butt, she stared at the bottle before uncorking it. After just a few gulps, she could feel her chest burning. To herself and let the feeling simmer, she moved under the shower and let the water rain down on her body.

’Speaking of death, I wonder how long I’ll have to live for my daughter too…’ The thought was grim, but her drunken state didn’t stop her from exploring it.

Deep in thought wondering when she should die, the Valkyrie drank and drank until she fell asleep in the cramped bathtub. By the time she would awake, her daughters would’ve already gone out playing, giving her the freedom to get a change of clothes without having to walk nude in front of them. But before that, the paintings, she would move them to her bedroom for better access at nights.